Perennial; culms in large dense clumps, slender, especially toward the base, 1-1.5 m. high; sheaths usually shorter than the internodes, glabrous; ligule very short; blades linear, as much as 40 cm. long, 4-7 mm. wide, flat, glabrous, or sparsely pilose on the upper surface near the base; racemes 4-5, 12-15 cm. long, appressed or very narrowly ascending, the rachis narrowly winged, about 0.7 mm. wide, scabrous; spikelets 2.3 mm. long, paired, one short-pedicellate, the other with a pedicel as long as or somewhat longer than the spikelet; first glume wanting or present as a very short thin scale; second glume about one-fourth as long as the fruit, obtuse, sometimes shallowly lobed, glabrous; sterile lemma elliptic, acute, 5-nerved, the lateral nerves approximate near the margins, minutely pubescent on the internerves; fruit dark reddish-brown, striate.
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